


Waves

by JennyBoBenny



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennyBoBenny/pseuds/JennyBoBenny
Summary: This story is still in progress but I thought I'd post some of it!Set in an alternate reality, in which the world is crumpled, squished, and overpopulated, teenagers are on their own, and magic is real. Some call them "Imps", but  others find that is too light of a term to describe the magically inclined. Some call them Delinquents. Demons. Detonators.Mildred's sixteen. She lives with no family in an apartment complex full of strangers, her best friend, and a boy she wants to protect.Mira is also sixteen. Her parents like privacy so they live in a tiny house, all by themselves. Because of this they are considered part of the lucky few. All she wants to do is escape.





	Waves

Millie takes the stairs two at a time. 

They creak under her steps and she prays that they’ll hold, that they’ll hold just this once, even as the sparks slip under the floorboards.

Three neighbors she’s never met leave the house before her, and she feels someone’s hands pressed against her back, sweaty and shaking. Pushes her out the door, into the air which burns cold and leaves her stinging. There’s a jacket in her backpack but she doesn’t take it out just yet because the house, the house is burning, and as all of her neighbors join her on the asphalt, she stands with the strangers and watches as their home goes up in flames.

-

Smoke pours out from a lit cigarette.

It’s been an hour since the house began to burn. The firemen haven’t come yet. Millie looks to the man sitting next to her. She’s seen him shit before. She was reading her book in the hall and he had to go so bad he didn’t have time to shut the door. He did once they met eyes. She doesn’t know his name but she knows he smokes even when he’s shitting, and that he smokes when he reads the paper and when he watches TV. They have one TV. Millie doesn’t watch it because strangers fighting over the TV channel is discomforting and makes her feel on edge.

She’s put on her coat. It’s not very warm. 

The street is cramped and the fire spreads. She wonders if people will ever care about their homes, about their towns, about them. Millie’s watching the fire when a boy stands in her way.

He looks about eight. His face is round and he’s asian. His face is flushed and his eyes are red.  
He’s holding the straps of his backpack, and his coat is thick. “Do you want a hat?” he says. He’s missing a front tooth. “I have an extra.”

Millie smiles, nods. She looks to her right, telling him to sit. He does. He hands her a knit cap. She doesn’t need to say thank you. People don’t say thank you much here. 

“You should tuck your hands under your butt. That makes them warmer,” he says. She does. “Do you think they’ll come soon?” He whispers, this time. Like it’s a secret. “I don’t think much of the street’s gonna be left if they don’t.”

Millie looks at him. “What’s your name?”

“PJ.” He smiles. “Stands for Peter Jameson. That’s my dad’s name.”

Millie smiles back, “Well you can call me MM, then. For Mildred Murray. That’s my name.”

“How’d you get that name?”

“I chose it. Alliteration. I like a good name with alliteration.”

“You don’t like my name?”

“I do, actually. It’s a nice name. I don’t know why. It’s hard to have a good name for no reason. Be proud of that name, Peter. It’ll do good things.”

\---

Mira cuts her father’s hair before her own. His scalp is dry so she puts the hose on lightly and runs water through it. They don’t have any soap. She needs to get some more money, buy groceries, then the shampoo. 

She cuts everyone's hair outside so she doesn’t make a mess and have to clean it up. There’s always hair on the street for weeks but the whole place is a mess and so nobody minds it. The street is for biking and buses. That’s what everyone always says. You don’t walk there, you don’t play there, you don’t do anything stupid. Then you won’t mind so much when some old lady puts her trash there. That’s what the old lady down the street said when Mira asked her to start taking her stuff to the dump. She said, “you expect me to go to the dump? I’m old, I’m a woman, I’ve got money in my pockets. You want me dead, Mira? You want me dead?”

Her dad takes a puff of his cigarette. The smoke hits her face in the wind and she coughs. She cuts off too much hair in the back so she cuts the rest to match. 

He takes another puff, coughs on the smoke, waves his hand and lets the smoke waver in the wind. “Get the sideburns, honey. Remember them, they’re too long. Too long, too long. So annoying, I swear to fucking god. If I get another fucking hair in my mouth I swear to fucking god I’ll cut them off myself. I swear to fucking god.”

“Mm.”

“I mean have you ever had a job before Mira? I mean like a real job? A tough job? My hair, Mira. It gets stuck sometimes. I want it short. We should buy one of those buzzers. I want it short.”

“Mhm.”

“You cuttin it? Real short?”

“Yes Poppy.”

Her dad’s skin is dark like hers. Indian. Mostly Indian, she thinks. She doesn’t know. Her mom and dad look Indian. She hasn’t really asked, but she thinks that must be it. She does too. His nose is arched a bit, just like hers is arched a bit. And their skin is just the same shade of brown, except you can see all these little pale scars in his. His skin’s raised and puffy some places, that’s how bad it’s scarred. Mira only asked about them when she was little, curled around her Poppy and holding his hand in hers. Lots of little scars at the fingers.

 

Across the street a boy her age takes out a lawn chair, a real nice boxed record player, and a stack of vinyls. He has to take trips but a woman sits at the window with a baseball bat. When she looks at her she raises a brow back. Don't you dare steal my boy’s things. That's what she whispers with the slap of the bat to her hand. You steal his things. His records or his heart. I split you open.

The boy puts in a record and sits in his lawn chair. The Kinks. That's Mira’s favorite band, the Kinks. The boy knows and his lips mouth the words. Mira looks back to her dad’s scalp.

“You think you could cut my hair too, Poppy?”

He really chokes on the smoke this time, chokes and coughs from laughing so hard. He waves around his hand with the cigarette and the world smells like smoke.

“Honey, honey,” he wheezes, “your Poppy doesn't cut hair.” And he settles down, lifting the cigarette to his lips once again. 

“Besides, you don't want your hair short. Nice and long, your hair. So pretty, Mira. Nice and pretty, you'll get someone with lots of money. You'll bring us greatness. Greatness and money, hah.”


End file.
